By Ricky Baldwin Ricky Baldwin is a longtime community and union organizer who lives in Urbana. Anticipating the Janus decision discussed elsewhere in this issue, Central Illinois Jobs With Justice (JWJ) held a public discussion on February 18 in the … Continue reading →

Posted inLabor|Comments Off on Anti-Union Rauner, Koch Brothers Aim at a Nation of Wisconsins

(Ricky Baldwin is a Senior Field Organizer for SEIU 73, activist with Jobs With Justice, and occasional contributor to Labor Notes, Z Magazine, and Dollars and Sense.) Part One described multimillionaire Gov. Rauner’s stealth attack on the poor and … Continue reading →

Posted inLabor/Economics, Politics|Comments Off on “I’m Not Anti-Union”: Governor ALEC and the Hostile Takeover of Illinois (Part 2 of 2)

“I’m probably .01 percent.” – Bruce Rauner, asked if he is part of the wealthiest 1% Chicago equity “salesman” Bruce Rauner succeeded in his first ever election last November with 50.3 percent of the vote, spending nearly $36 per voter … Continue reading →

Posted inLabor/Economics, Politics|Comments Off on “Not Anti-Union”: Shaking Up Springfield, Shaking Down the State

“The … administration has followed a reverse policy of hiring incompetent leadership at the highest prices. If it were up to the university no hourly person would make much more than minimum wage. How are we going to support your … Continue reading →

By Ricky Baldwin When news broke this summer that a toxic cloud of sulfuric acid at a local plant had sent eleven local workers to the hospital, horrific as the story was, many in the area were not all that … Continue reading →

By Ricky Baldwin Mary is laid off from her job in food service at the University of Illinois four times a year for a total of four and a half months. During this time, she does not count as unemployed. … Continue reading →

Loudly proclaiming its poverty whenever workers want a raise, the University of Illinois belies this claim through actions like hiring incoming President Michael Hogan at $620,000 a year “base” salary, plus retention bonus and perks. That’s more than a third … Continue reading →

A disheveled man stands in a local post office asking for spare change. Another man hands him a dollar and strikes up a conversation, fishers-of-men style. The second man describes a local effort among unemployed and underemployed workers to get … Continue reading →

IN THE 1880’S, THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR constructed a much broader vision of organized labor than the “business unionism” of its craft union rivals that became the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The Knights welcomed unskilled workers, of any race … Continue reading →